Casiotone: a Fine Wordsmith

The composition that goes to make up the modern day folk music of Owen Ashworth can be said to be another Stella piece of writing for one of contemporary music’s astonishing wordsmiths.

The dilemmas that cross and shape the outcomes of the characters within the songs are as human and vulnerable as anyone who has experienced car-crashes, unplanned pregnancies and even jelly-fish stings. Thus, as all good art should do it strikes at the heart of the kind of empathy that most people can relate to.

Many will agree that folk music is something that has its roots when people played music on what ever it was that they could find around them. Today the modern day equivalent is that of how the music can be created to bring out individuality and still do it with things they have. For Ashworth it was the Casio keyboards that allowed his music to remain truly that of modern electronic folk music.

Ashworth created the music for this album with the music first. The same as a rap artist begins with music first and then adds the words. Thus, Ashworth too added the lyrics to match the music he created. This, was very much a different approach to what he had previously used by writing down words and then coming up with music.
Be sure to catch Casiotone For the Painfully Alone at the Northcote Social Club on the 5th of November.

You can also get a taste of the album Castiotone For the Painfully Alone Vs Children (Tomlab/Inertia).